Northwest Reassessments Temper Tax-rate Dips

Every month, Mt. Prospect resident Louise Apke Chileen socks away $420 for property taxes and insurance on her home. Now she will have to put another ten-spot in the kitty each month to cover a modest increase of a little more than $100 in her property taxes.

"It's not that drastic of a change," said Chileen, who lives with her husband, Scot, and three children in a 35-year-old, split-level house on Mulberry Lane. "It's not that devastating."

On Thursday, property owners throughout Cook County got their first opportunity to determine whether they share Chileen's view. The Cook County clerk's office released property-tax rates, providing the final piece in this year's tax puzzle that now allows homeowners to anxiously sift through the data to determine if bigger bills will be coming their way.

Many had anticipated they would. Last year the Cook County assessor's office conducted reassessments of properties in the 13 townships in the north and northwest suburbs, which is often a precursor to higher tax bills.

The property-tax bills, which will be arriving around Oct. 1, are two months behind schedule. They are due Nov. 1.

Tax rates in the north and northwest suburbs generally declined in response, in part, to the recent reassessment. For example, residents of South Barrington will see about a 10 percent drop in the rate to fund their village government. And the Park Ridge Park District tax rate dropped by more than 16 percent.

Those changes, however, may be misleading because homeowners whose property was recently reassessed could still see a significant bump in their property-tax bills.

That's because the rates are only one factor in an equation that also includes the assessed value of property as well as a state-issued number called the equalization factor. The total equation is dictated by how much in property taxes local taxing bodies are requesting.

A year-to-year drop in the tax rate generally means bills will be stable or only slightly higher.

Typically, an increase in property values can be offset by a decline in tax rates--as happened in the north and northwest suburbs.

According to figures from Cook County Assessor James Houlihan, assessments countywide rose 3.8 percent. The north and northwest suburbs, which were reassessed in 1998, had an increase of 8.3 percent, according to Houlihan.

Bill Vaselopulos, director of the clerk's Tax Extension Department, said whether a homeowner in a particular community sees an increase in their property taxes depends on the vigor of the local real estate market as well as any home improvements.

"If someone's individual home assessment went up 15 or 20 percent, well, certainly they're going to be paying more than someone who went up 5 percent," Vaselopulos said. "If you're in a hot neighborhood or you've had a new improvement added to your property, you're going to be paying more in taxes than someone who had a nominal increase."

Overall, the more than 900 taxing bodies in Cook County, from the City of Chicago down to the smallest library district, will receive more than $7.3 billion from property-tax receipts this year, a slight increase from the year before.

Even with the implementation of tax caps, property taxes remain a hot political issue. The caps were adopted for Cook County in 1995 to limit hundreds of taxing bodies to tax increases of no more than 5 percent or the rate of inflation, whichever is less.

Vaselopulos said about 550 of the taxing bodies in the county are subject to the tax cap, but "the rest are exempt." Vaselopulos said the exempt districts include villages with home-rule powers.

The annual property-tax ritual has critics renewing the call for reform.

"Every time we go through this process, it focuses attention on the fact that Illinois is a state which is very heavily reliant on property taxes," said Tim Bramlet, president of the Taxpayers' Federation of Illinois.

Bramlet said efforts during the 1990s to reform the system have been unsuccessful "primarily because of the lack of political will."

The impact of tax caps on school districts continues to evoke a hue and cry from officials.

The cries are likely to grow louder this year with most districts under the cap limited to growth in their budgets of 1.7 percent.

Life under a property-tax cap means that school districts have to adjust and plan better, said John Repsholdt, director of business services for River Trails Elementary School District 26, based in Mt. Prospect.

School officials began planning for the constraints of a tax cap when the state legislature began discussing tax caps in 1989, he said.

"This district was in a situation to position itself for a tax cap," Repsholdt said.

In November, voters in District 26 approved a 50-cent hike in the education fund tax to $2.60 per $100 of assessed valuation. The school district was able to counter the tax increase with a similar decrease in the bond and interest fund, he said.

"We were able to move the revenue stream from one area, from paying debt to another area, in education," Repsholdt said.

Back on Mulberry Lane, Brendan T. Bolger, a 25-year resident of the street, has weathered many drastic property-tax hikes, particularly double-digit increases that came before the tax cap was imposed. This year, he said, he is unmoved by any increase in his taxes.

"There's nothing I can do about it," he said. "I don't like the price of gas at $1.60 when it was $1.30, but there's nothing I can do about it so I am not going to worry."